I'm mostly doing bodyweight exercises at home and have noticed that I can do most exercises better after a short warm up session. At the moment my warm up consists simply trying to get the muscles I want to work out in motion a bit.

I read a bit about dynamic stretching here on fitness.SE and wonder if it might be used as a warm up. I am not interested in doing a whole stretching session before the workout, just use some of the movements, but with less repetitions, as a warm up to have at least some structure in it.

Is it a good idea to make use of dynamic stretching as a warm up or is a warm up for body weight exercises not required at all?

4 Answers
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Dynamic exercises are commonly used for warm-ups. Tom Kurz recommends rotating the joints, jogging or otherwise getting the heart rate up for five minutes, then dynamic stretches of the legs, arms, and trunk.

Whether you need it for bodyweight exercise is another question. I feel better with a warm-up regardless of the content of the workout. The point of dynamic stretches is to allow the body to safely and fully realize its full range of motion. That seems necessary for many types of workouts.

A dynamic warm-up takes the muscles and joints thru their available ranges. It lubricates soft tissues and joints, increases circulation to the muscles, increases the heart rate and primes the nervous system. So a dynamic warm-up before bodyweight exercises helps to reduce injury by preparing the body to accept the load.

This video demonstrates a full body dynamic warm-up that addresses joint motion and functional movement patterns. It includes upper and lower extremeties as well as the spine.

There has always been a debate about Dynamic vs. Static stretching, and when the right time for use of both are.

As an example, two hours before my football games, I tend to use dynamic stretching before static stretching. The reason behind this is that you want to activate and get blood pumping through your system before any static stretching is to be done later on.

But, when it comes to lifting, I suggest Dynamic warm ups before the workout and then Static stretches post-workout to help with the healing process.

Warm-ups are always good, both for the physical and the mental side of training.

To give an example of a warm up exercise with some structure in it, I can recommend "sun salutations" from yoga. For the last couple years, I have used them as my standard warm-up tool for both body weight and other exercises.